His Dark Words

14 | The Real You

"This is too perfect!" Is all Vanessa can find herself able to repeat over and over again. She is over the moon over MARS ecstatic. Things never work out like this. It's like a fairy-tale or one of those sappy movies starring ex-Disney kids. Of course, she'd only found out from Derrick just before I did, she swore up, down and sideways that was the truth.

"Even when I told you to drop it, I didn't know, really!" She'd said when I found her.

Of course, Austin is a senior and of course he had wanted to meet me Friday to ask me to Prom. Maybe it's the cynic in me but it all feels just a little too perfect. Like one of Vanessa's plans actually panned out exactly the way she'd wanted it to, but without her having a thing to do with it. 

But why does something feel 'not right' about the whole thing? Austin is hands down the hottest guy in school, different from Derrick but they're in the same league. He's exactly the guy you dream of setting up an elaborate scheme to steal your bag and ask you to Prom. But when do things ever work out like this? It feels like I cheated the system... Maybe it's because I read his journal and know all these deep, dark secrets about him but yet I don't actually know him.

He asked me to Carlo's Pizza Place after school and what else could I say but yes? I hound Vanessa to come too and she's more than happy to double date, thrilled even; it is a Vanessa Perfect Plan © after all. Carlo's is the kind of dive restaurant that does the best food with the worst service imaginable. Kids from our school love it because you can stay there for hours and hours and no one will tell you to get lost. Totally worth the trade-off of waiting forty-five minutes for the wrong pizza... On a good day. So, the four of us share a ham and cheese pizza (we'd ordered pepperoni) and talk about Prom, how awful Coach Mattison is, that Logan Whitmore got caught speeding again, and that Natalie Pierce supposedly hooked up with half of the football team. I feel sorry for Natalie and wonder what she'd done to call down the wrath of the entire senior class on her.

This is like being initiated into a whole other world that exists within our high school, but we were never aware of until being invited in. My head is spinning with names of people I barely know and all these details about their lives that sound so wild. Then Derrick says something off hand about Macie and Austin's face loses its easy, half-smile all at once. Derrick realizes his mistake and shuts up real fast then everything instantly goes back to normal. It's funny like that, Derrick does most of the talking, but Austin is coolly in charge of the whole thing. He looks over at me as Derrick and Vanessa are talking and his eyes seem to see all of me all at once and find me... What? 

Amusing? 

It's hard to tell.

Languidly, and that word seems to suit him to a tee, he stands up, throws some bills carelessly on the table and announces that he and I are going for a walk. I turn bright red, wishing the slightly sticky floors of Carlo's would open up and swallow me whole. But I slip out of the booth, nod goodbye to Vanessa and Derrick and follow him as if I'm in a trance. It's cool outside, and he gives me his jacket. It smells like soap and outdoors and just a hint of boy. 

"It's exactly how he would smell." I think, pulling it around my shoulders and trotting beside him as he strolls round the block.

"I heard what happened at the party on Friday." He says after a while. "Hope you're not disappointed that it's my bag and not Derrick's."

Did he really think that?

"No, no... I was just confused I guess, because he had my notes." I explain.

He laughs, a free and easy sound. "I'm sorry about that, he's not doing so well in chem and you're in pretty much all the advanced classes, so I thought you wouldn't mind."